Visualizations
Playlist
This site's home page is a visualization of S E B's recent Playlist. It's a React App consuming Server-sent events, and it displays:
- an Audio Player
- a Progress radial
- a Timeline of the recently played Songs
- information about the Current Song
- a Quick Search wizard
It is a long-form visualization -- a piece of data sculpture to frame and hang on a wall.
Load the page once, and it will slowly evolve over the course of a day -- or days.
The Proress radial and Song information cycle on every track.
A column in the Timeline spends two hours traveling from the edge of the radial to the far right of the screen.
The Progress radial is comprised of a bunch of shaded SVG triangles and a numeric countdown timer. The Audio Player overlays it.
The Timeline extends from the Progress radial (time = "now") to the far right of the screen.
It represents the last two hours of Songs played on S E B.
Each colored segment represents a Song's proportion of time within those two hours.
The background illustrations come from The Secret Teachings of All Ages,
a book further discussed in Media Attributions.
The full-resolution images may take a little while to download.
The information about the Current Song will provide links into Ambience for the Masses for
- the Album itself -- if it has a dedicated page
- an Artist page -- it's not always "the Artist's page", but the linked Artist will have an Album listed there
The Quick Search wizard is an attempt at a convenient three-click interface;
- Where do you want to search?
- What do you want to search for?
- Should we search for any word, or an exact match?
The Playlist Visualization also displays information cards for the most-recently-played Songs.
Their visual style reflects their segment within the Timeline.
You will also find links to some recent 8-hour Playlists.
They are rendered by ancient technology, and are not as content-rich as this website.
Current Listener Map
The Current Listener Map visualizes the geo-locations of S E B's Active Listeners.
It is another facet of the same React App which powers the Playlist.
The Map displays:
- the geo-position of each Listener -- by IP Address
- metrics about that IP's listenership
- global metrics of S E B's Active Listership as a whole
There are four different forms;
three are based upon latitude,
and the fourth is shown when you are actively listening.
The size of a form is based upon how long ago they first listened to S E B.
The maturity of a form is computed from their active session duration.
Forms fall into a cycle of decay once they stop listening, and are eventually removed from the Map.
Changes are constantly monitored, but the Map is designed to evolve slowly.
Obviously, this is not meant to be creepy at all. Nor is the Eye of Providence icon below the S E B logo which indicates that you are actively listening.
I have only been tracking data since mid-2007, so I don't have long-tail data from those die-hard accolytes who have been tuning in since 1999. (love and kisses to you)
And, again ... this is not meant to be creepy at all.